Smiting the smiteable since 2005

Category: Humor
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Most national holidays find me struggling with a post offering my own brand of snarky wisdom to my fellow countrymen. I usually pick a dysfunctional topic du jour or bemoan people having only a scant idea what they are celebrating beyond a BOGO sale at the local appliance mart. There is often a plea to save ourselves from ourselves by showing rare common sense and unity we can use to pull ourselves together instead of sitting in a hand-basket and arguing about where we’re off to.

Of course, those pleas go unanswered so I’m growing bored with them. After all, how often can you lead a horse to water and stick his head beneath the surface to make him drink?

Some of you have asked, most of you have not. That’s not surprising since the readership of the Poobah has dropped considerably. Life waxes and wanes. That is the way things work.

I’ve been doing this gig for 7 1/2 years. That’s an epoch in blog time. I’m not sure how many posts I’ve done, but it has been in the thousands. I’m not sure how many visitors I’ve had, but it is in the high hundreds of thousands (I even got one from Antarctica once). That’s not bad for a guy with a keyboard and a loud mouth.

My production has dropped too. This is where I should say something about all the fun I’ve had and the close friends I’ve made, and that would be true. But most importantly, this blog has been my friend too. It has helped me vent and given me a new-found respect that an astonishing number of people read what I had to say — regularly — even deeply personal things aside from important (and sometimes unimportant) things that go on outside of me.

If bloggers have a steady complaint it is that life too often intrudes on their writing. Relationships need tending. Jobs get in the way. It’s the way of the world. Sometimes the tumult of personal life and the lives of so many people and so many events outside just converge and make one tired. I’ve given advice to many a blogger just getting started. I have two pieces for them. Always write for yourself and when it isn’t fun anymore, stop.

It’s not as much fun anymore. These days the idea of writing is more appealing than actual writing these days. The words don’t come and when they do, they aren’t good enough — better a little of something good than a lot of something bad. After all, I can’t rage at the world forever. I always promised myself that when I reached that point I’d stop. I’ve reached that point.

I’m not sure if this is a retirement or a hiatus. Perhaps the spark will return and perhaps not. If you’d like to know if it does, please drop me an email or hit the subscribe button over there. I’ll keep a list.

If this is the last time I post or if this is the last time you stop in, I appreciate your patronage. I hope you got at least a small taste of the joy it’s been for me.